


Lamp Oil from Star Whales

by lynndyre



Category: Star Ocean: The Last Hope
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-19 23:06:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1487473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynndyre/pseuds/lynndyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arumat finds he is dying, and decides to live.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lamp Oil from Star Whales

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SwordofRebecca](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwordofRebecca/gifts).



It starts gradually. Arumat's muscles ache after particularly strenuous fights. That's not unusual. Crowe has his own share of aches and pains. They live hard, out in the depths of space. On the changing surfaces of alien worlds.

The aches take longer to disappear, and come back at lesser provocation. There are strange creatures to hunt, strange cities to explore. It's easy to ignore the pain. Arumat does. 

The headaches are harder. They disrupt his concentration, erode his already unfriendly moods, until he snaps at Crowe more often than not. Crowe calls him on it. Arumat wonders why he can't remember the last time he felt at full strength.

He collects a few extra ingredients at their next planetfall, induces the item creation console to produce a mild Eldarian analgesic. He runs out, much faster than he expected to. He makes more.

When he finally puts the pieces together, it’s by accident. It’s a good night. Crowe made them Earth food, and little purple taro cakes for dessert, a soft sweet taste that Arumat loves. Arumat is relaxed, in ways he still rarely allows himself to be, and thinks, for a moment, that he's glad he's here. That this life, adrift in the stars with Crowe, is good.

It's that thought that drives it home, makes him realise what his body has been saying. What he's been refusing to hear. The mods are wearing him out. He's finally dying.

The taro cakes are leaden and cold in his stomach. He wants to be wrong. He knows he is not. 

It should be a relief. A year and more ago, it would have been.

Now, Arumat drains his cup, and heads for his bunk, unable to answer Crowe's questioning glance. He stares at the bulkhead ceiling in the darkness. _“I'll be there to witness the moment you finally burn out."_ Arumat knows Crowe now, knows him as he didn't know him then. Crowe kept the last message of a dying husband, without even understanding it. Kept it until translation was possible, carried it until it could be given to the man’s wife. He swore to stand by Arumat, and he will stand by him until the end. Will bear witness exactly as he said, lending Arumat the strength to keep going, without his world, without his brethren. Without anyone but himself. 

There is a part of Arumat's soul that still longs for exactly what was promised; longs to die in battle, muscles screaming, tearing, until his mouth tastes like blood and his lungs collapse, to have Crowe at his side, fighting all the universe that stands in their way. To die under that gaze, those even, knowing eyes that have seen through him with every glance, have made him stronger with their focus. To die in Crowe's arms, knowing that he was witnessed. Knowing that he was seen, and valued, and finally finished with it all.

Yes. He still wants that.

But he finds he does not want it yet. 

 

Crowe's footsteps sound on the decking, and Arumat rolls to face the wall. Usually he and Crowe will face each other, across the space between the bunks, talking into the ships night until they both sleep, or until Crowe sleeps and Arumat watches him in the half-light before giving his own surrender.  
He cannot look at Crowe tonight.

Frustratingly, as ever, Crowe respects Arumat's choices, and does nothing more than lay a hand on his shoulder and say a quiet goodnight. The hand is gone before Arumat can make himself respond, and he stares without seeing at the bulkhead wall, feeling the phantom heat where Crowe's hand rested, the phantom cold that follows.

In the years since he was seventeen, since he lost his shipmates, since he chose the mods that are killing him, no one touched him without reason. He was of the Thirteenth Division. Telepathic contact was limited to work-related interfaces, until his Sol was more familiar in the back of his mind than the thoughts of his brothers. He was Death. He had no need of contact, and others had no need of him - his touch, mental or physical, was not one to bring happiness. 

He misses them still, his brethren who died so long ago. Misses them almost more than the thousands who died with Eldar itself - that loss is too great, he is still unable to feel it properly. It seeps in around the edges of alien suns, and ambushes him in the shadows of alien shade. It should be another reason for him to welcome the end.

He should want to join them. He has spent years with that thought living in the back of his mind.

He does not want to leave Crowe.

He asks the memory of his brothers if it is wrong to want to live. If it is wrong to want to continue. To see as much of space as he can, that stupid, infantile dream they all began with. 

They are dead. They do not answer. All he can hear is Crowe's voice. “ -- you've still got work to do.”

He finds he does.

He finds he is dying.

He is angry with the universe. And with himself. The anger coils, heated, in his chest, pulses in his throat. His hesitance is a hateful thing. So is the desire for rest. He rolls, turns to look at Crowe across the tiny cabin. Crowe’s eyes are open. He is watching. Crowe sees him -- has always seen him. 

But Crowe himself is not the same man he was, when he pulled Arumat into his ship, away from the burning wreckage and the cascading fire of the blown-out sun. He is wiser. Maybe stronger. But his soul is more scarred. 

Arumat has seen Crowe's gaze strong, wild, angry. Happy. Hurt. He fought beside Crowe in the Sanctuary to collect blue roses for 5 funeral bouquets, to mourn alien shipmates Arumat had loved in spite of himself. Hwang and Joe and Eddie, Hiro and Ohta. 

Crowe is still strong. Arumat knows that Crowe would follow through. Would watch him die. Would help him, if he asked it. 

Arumat does not want to hurt him again.

The funeral roses weren’t the only thing EN II had offered them. Morphus technology was far ahead of Eldarian, farther still ahead of Earthling resources. There were options. Arumat had ignored them, then. It hadn’t been a priority.

He reaches out, across the distance between bunks. His ungloved fingers meet Crowe's, reaching back.

"I'm dying."

"I know."

He shouldn't know. Arumat didn't. Arumat is a fool, wanting things after squandering them for years.  
Crowe swallows. It clicks, like his throat is dry. "What do you want to do?"

Arumat tightens his fingers around Crowe's hand, and feels it shake. Crowe grips back, body taught.

"I want to go to EN II. I want to live."


End file.
